Tuck relaxed on his pillow with her in the circle of one arm. “I hear you. Givin’ up my ranch in Idaho was hard for me. It was my reason for gettin’ up in the mornin’.”
“Did you notice a difference in your activity level once you sold it?”
“Damn straight. I bought me a twenty-acre hobby farm in Crystal Falls, and I kept my gelding, Bolt. No real money to make, and nothin’ to lose if I just lazed around. I’m a rancher. If I’d had the capital, I would’ve stayed in Idaho and hired cowboys to do the work. That way, I could’ve supervised and stayed in the game. But I wasn’t that rich, so I had to let it go.”
“So you understand where I’m coming from.”
“I do.” Tuck understood better than she could know. “So keep doin’ what you love. I’m supportive of it. But it brings us back to—what did you call that agreement?”
“A prenup. Only, I’m torn, Tuck. I’d like to believe my kids deserve to be my heirs, but blood alone doesn’t afford them that privilege.”
“Well, cut ’em out of your will, then. Give everything to charity. Just make sure, if we get married, that not a dime comes to me. I’ll do the same on my side. Since you don’t need it, I think all my money and assets oughta go to Crystal.”
“I agree. I like that girl. She loves you, and she shows you that she does.”
“Yep. And she sure as hell won’t get a nickel from her parents.”
“What happened, Tuck? I understood before when you hesitated to tell me about her past, but things have changed between us now.”
Tuck closed his eyes. Essie was right; loving each other as they did, it didn’t seem right to keep secrets from each other. He told her Crystal’s story, leaving nothing out.
“Oh, dear,” Essie said. “Poor Crystal. How could her parents turn on her like that? A girl that age shouldn’t be left alone for target practice, much less be in charge of a younger child. What was her mother thinking?”
Tuck had traveled the same paths of reasoning so many times that doing it again only made him feel tired. “My daughter and her husband accused Crystal of murder. She was even taken in for questionin’. The cops figured out she was innocent of any wrongdoin’, but by then the damage was done. My daughter and her husband were arrested and faced all kinds of charges. Lisa left the kids alone to go grocery shoppin’. Her husband put a lethal weapon in Crystal’s hands and demanded that she target practice unsupervised. They had endangered both their children. Their reputations were destroyed, and that only made ’em madder at Crystal.” He swallowed. “And there was somethin’ more. I’ve never even told Crystal this, so you’re on your honor. I never want her to know. She’s had enough heartbreak.”
Essie nodded. “You can trust me, Tuck.”
“When I drove to Washington to get Crystal, I confronted her father. I knew my daughter wasn’t blameless, but I held him to be more responsible for what happened. He was the one who forced Crystal to take up archery, the one who insisted that she practice daily, whether he was there or not. As I was lacin’ into him, he turned to me and said, ‘She’s not mine. Your daughter was knocked up when I married her, and she never told me until just before Crystal was born three months early.’ I was plumb speechless. But then it all started to make sense, how Mary Ann was the apple of her daddy’s eye, while Crystal always seemed to be on the outside, lookin’ in.
“What really broke my heart, though, was that Crystal wanted so bad to please that man. How she pandered to him. How hard she tried to make him notice her and feel proud. It was a hopeless situation for Crystal, a battle for his affection that she could never win. He adored his own daughter and had little attention to spare for some other man’s child. With the exception of archery, of course. Only, he set the bar so high for Crystal that she could never please him by doin’ that, either.”
Essie patted his chest. “I’m so glad you took her away from them.”
“Me, too. What really eats at me to this day is that my daughter went along with her husband, treatin’ Crystal like she was the odd one out. You can’t tell it now. Crystal’s all grown up and seems okay. But they scarred her in places we can’t see. They sure enough did.”
* * *
After Essie got dressed and put on her getaway cardigan, Tuck saw her to the door and agreed to meet her for breakfast in the dining hall. Sunday was the official day for family members to drop by and the only time all week when the cooking was halfway decent. Every resident in the place looked forward to it. Real bacon. Tuck salivated as he took a quick shower, protecting his cast with a plastic bag. Afterward he took special care as he shaved and combed his hair. Essie was so beautiful. He wanted to look extra nice today. He finished off his grooming with a second splash of cologne. Not too bad, he decided, taking a final look in the mirror. Not for his age, at least.
He arrived at the dining hall, carrying Essie’s brown jacket in a paper sack. He set it by her chair before he sat across from her. On Sundays they got menus, and that was a special treat.
“Uh-oh, I have to decide what I want again,” Tuck said with a laugh. “I get so used to not havin’ a choice that seein’ a menu gives me anxiety.”
She sighed and said, “Just you wait. When I own this place, we’ll have breakfast, lunch, and dinner menus, and they’ll change daily. And the food will be prepared by an actual chef, not a grade-school cafeteria cook.”
Tuck nodded. “Hurry it up, darlin’. Bacon every morning.” He peered at the meat selection. “Holy smokes. Chicken-fried steak! With gravy. I think I’ve died and gone to heaven.”
Essie decided on eggs Benedict with a short stack of pancakes on the side. “I won’t be able to eat all of it,” she said. “But I do miss my flapjacks.”
They’d finished eating and were walking toward Tuck’s apartment when Crystal and Tanner entered the building with Rip on a leash. The dog gave a joyful yip and lunged toward Tuck, jerking the leash from Crystal’s hand. Tuck bent and spread his arms. The heeler jumped at his chest, and Tuck caught him in a hug.
“How’s my boy?” Tuck pressed his face against the dog’s fur. “I missed you so much.”
Rip planted a paw on each of his shoulders and licked his face as if it were a rapidly melting ice-cream cone. Tuck couldn’t help but laugh.
Just then Patricia Flintlock appeared. In Tuck’s opinion, she looked like a drill sergeant with an attitude problem. He wondered why she hadn’t joined the marines so she could tongue-lash people and receive merits for her nastiness.
“Get that mongrel out of the common area now,” she said.
Tuck sorely wished Essie already owned this joint. But for now, Flintlock was in charge and could still throw her weight around. “You bet,” Tuck told her. “It’s startin’ to smell like spoiled fish in here.”
As they walked to his apartment, Tuck noticed that Crystal looked a little tired. He also noticed that Tanner held her hand, which made him hide a grin. Hoo-rah, he wanted to shout. His granddaughter couldn’t do better than Tanner Richards. He was a stand-up guy.
Once inside Tuck’s suite, Rip was allowed to run free. He was so excited to see Tuck that most of his attention was centered on him, but in between master-and-dog love sessions, the heeler circled back to Crystal. It touched Tuck that the dog had grown to love his granddaughter. And rightly so, in Tuck’s opinion. She tried to hold herself apart and keep her feelings under tight rein, but she had a heart of pure gold.
Once the initial excitement died down, Crystal regaled Tuck and Essie with an account of everything that had happened last night. Now Tuck understood why she hadn’t called or dropped by to see him.
“The Lingerie Burglar?” Essie repeated. “And people at the sheriff’s department think he may have murdered a woman? Dear heavens. You should have spent the night with us.” Essie’s face turned scarlet. “Well, with Tuck, I mean.”
Crystal didn’t appear to have ca
ught the slip, but Tuck saw Tanner’s gaze sharpen. The younger man studied Essie for a moment and then flashed Tuck a knowing grin. Tuck winked.
“I was fine,” Crystal assured them. “Rip protected me. And then Tanner came to spend the night.”
Tuck watched his granddaughter’s face turn as red as Essie’s had seconds earlier. It was an aha moment, confirming what he had suspected when he saw Tanner holding Crystal’s hand. The kids had a thing going. Tuck couldn’t have been more pleased. He just hoped Crystal wouldn’t bail out this time. In her younger years she’d been in relationships, but she’d always ended them without offering Tuck a clear explanation of why. That was how he’d learned the term player, because that was what she’d often told him when she was done with a guy and ready to move on. “He’s a player, Tuck.” Well, if there was anything Tuck could attest to, it was that Tanner Richards wasn’t.
He decided to set aside his concerns about Crystal’s inability to remain in a relationship. He didn’t like what he’d just heard about someone entering his granddaughter’s house, and he was even more worried about the possibility that the man had raped and strangled a Medford woman.
“Hearin’ about that panty burglar makes me realize I need to share a secret with you, Crystal, and with Tanner, too, if he may be around when trouble occurs.”
“I’m all ears,” Crystal said with a smile.
“Me, too,” Tanner inserted. “If that creep comes around again, I can use all the advice I can get.”
“Well, this here is a secret about Rip. I trained him from a pup. Did a lot of readin’ on how to do it. I wanted a dog I could count on in a life-or-death situation, a dog who’d go against impossible odds if I gave the command, or another man if it was ever necessary.” Tuck fondled the dog’s ears. “You gotta be careful when you train a dog to attack. The commands can’t be easy to guess. You gotta be certain nobody, and I do mean nobody, will ever be able to tell your dog to attack or guess the command to call him off.”
“Gotcha.” Tanner winked at Crystal. “Although I have to say, Tuck, I don’t think Rip needs much encouragement to attack someone.”
“Oh, he’ll pretend to attack.” Tuck looked down at his dog. No one in the room knew just how well trained Rip was. “But he don’t mean to hurt nobody, and he’s never drawn blood. If he’s given the attack command, though, he’ll go in for a kill.”
Tuck felt the mood in the room change. Crystal had lost the color in her cheeks; Tanner had a solemn, thoughtful look on his face; and Essie sat forward as if she couldn’t wait to hear what Tuck said next.
“Isn’t that a little extreme, Tuck?” Crystal questioned him with her gaze.
Tuck looked her directly in the eye. “When you face a huge grizzly and all you got is a pistol that’ll piss him off, you come talk to me about extreme. I love my dog, but when it comes to sacrificing Rip’s life or my own, it don’t take a whole lot of thinkin’ for me to make the choice. I hope you never get into a pickle like that. But if it ever happens, you’ll be glad you’ve got a dog that’ll die to protect you or someone you love.”
Crystal nodded. “I understand.”
Tanner said, “I’m still stuck on the grizzly. Did that really happen, Tuck?”
Tuck chuckled. “Oh, yeah. And Rip saved my life. He’s fast on his feet, that dog. He came out of it without a scratch. But he kept the bear so focused on him that I could get away. That old grizz didn’t know what hit him. Rip went after the backs of his feet, just like any good heeler will. Old boar kept whippin’ around, tryin’ to whack him. One swipe would’ve been Rip’s waterloo. But he never stayed in one place long enough to take a hit.”
“So Rip didn’t really attack the grizzly,” Crystal said. “He only distracted it.”
Tuck couldn’t help it; he laughed. “Honey, you know how tall an old male grizz is when it’s standin’ on its hind legs? On average, ten feet. Now take measure of Rip. He attacked, but all he could bite was ankle and lower leg. Last time I dared to look back—I was runnin’ for my life—I saw the bear go down on all fours, but Rip was managing to avoid the swipes. Don’t know what happened after that. I only know Rip came back to the truck grinnin’ like no tomorrow. We had us a couple of cold ones to celebrate.”
Tanner shook his head. “That’s a story I want to hear from beginning to end.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Tuck sat back in the recliner and patted his leg, inviting Rip to jump up. “But for now, with that burglar possibly still on the loose, it’s more important to tell you the attack command. Never share it with your kids, Tanner. Youngsters don’t understand the seriousness.”
“I won’t,” Tanner assured him.
“Some trainers choose words in a foreign language that they figure nobody’ll ever guess,” Tuck explained. “I have enough trouble talkin’ plain English, so I decided on a command I knew I’d remember even if I was scared half-senseless. Listen up, and don’t forget it. It’s spring forward. I can say it just talkin’, and it don’t mean squat to Rip.” He ruffled the dog’s fur. “But if I yell it, he goes for broke.” Understanding his granddaughter’s kind heart, Tuck smiled at her. “And if you decide that burglar has had enough, I chose your grandma’s name, Margie, to call him off.”
A bewildered frown pleated Crystal’s forehead. “Spring forward. How on earth did you come up with that?”
Sad memories swamped Tuck. “The day I picked you up in Washington and took you home to Idaho, I was still grievin’ for your grandmother. And there I was, saddled with a child to raise, all of a sudden like.” Tuck remembered how panicky he’d felt. He’d tried so hard to regroup and get over losing Marge, but it had been easier said than done. “People had told me I needed to move forward with my life. That I couldn’t feel sad forever. I knew that was true, but I was makin’ progress at a snail’s pace. And in a blink I knew I had to hurry myself up. All the way home to the ranch, I kept thinkin’, You gotta spring forward, Tuck. No more lollygaggin’ allowed. And in all the days that followed, when I started to feel sad and depressed, I’d tell myself, Get a grip. Think of that child. Spring forward. Those words came to mean a lot to me, because I did spring forward. I made a new life for you and myself. So when it came time to choose a command for Rip, I chose that. I knew I’d never forget those words, never.”
He saw tears in Crystal’s eyes. “And neither will I now that you’ve shared that story. I had no idea you were so sad when you took me to live with you.”
“That was as it should’ve been. You were just a girl, and havin’ you to raise saved my life. You gave me a reason to be again. Your grandma would have cheered me on.”
“So, in a dangerous moment, all I have to do is yell those words, and Rip will go into attack mode?”
“There’s a little more to it than that.” Tuck pushed Rip off his lap and went to the closet. He opened the louvered doors and rummaged through the coats hanging from the rod. “Here’s one I don’t care about. Got holes in the pockets.”
He closed the closet doors and hung the old parka from the knob. “You all just stay seated, and Crystal, you watch me. You, too, Tanner, just in case.”
Tuck wrestled playfully with his dog for a moment, making sure his audience saw that Rip was relaxed and in a frisky mood. Then he straightened, pointed at the parka, and yelled, “Spring forward!”
Rip, in the process of jumping up on Tuck’s leg, almost turned a somersault and hit the carpet at a dead run. When he leaped at the jacket, both closet doors bent inward under the impact. Rip jerked the coat and hanger off the knob and tore into the fabric, shaking the garment with unleashed ferocity. Tuck let him go until feathers started to fly.
“Margie!” he called.
Rip immediately stopped and backed away from the coat, still snarling. Tuck slapped his knee. “Good dog. Come!”
Rip came directly to him.
Crystal said, “Huh. That??
?ll work.”
Tanner grinned. “Oh, yeah.”
Crystal smiled at Tuck. “He’s only ever come to me once, and that was last night.”
“Is that right?” Tuck studied his dog, who was back to wanting to play again. “How do you call him?”
“I say, ‘Here, Rip,’ or ‘Come here, Rip.’”
“Well, that’s the problem, honey. You say one word in a stern voice. Come.”
Tuck waved his granddaughter to her feet. “Now you do it. Play with him for a second so he forgets about the coat. Then hang it back on the closet knob, point at it, and give him the attack command.”
Tuck resumed his seat in the recliner. He could tell Crystal felt silly and didn’t want to do this. But he had every confidence in his dog. Crystal hung the coat back up; bounced around on the living room rug for a minute, playing with Rip; and then pointed at the parka and yelled, “Spring forward!”
Rip tore into the parka again. Feathers flew until Crystal yelled, “Margie!”
“Now praise him,” Tuck reminded her. “He did good.”
Crystal went down on her knees and said, “Come!”
Rip ran to her. She gathered his wriggling body in her arms. Tuck watched the heeler lick her face. Rip had clearly come to adore her. Tuck waited until the canine had gotten his reward of praise and fondling.
Then he said, “Damn it, Crystal, you stole my dog!”
Chapter Sixteen
Crystal had scheduled time in her appointment book to take Tuck to the doctor’s office on Monday to get his cast removed, so the following day at one, she loaded Rip into her car and drove to pick up her grandfather. She’d been mulling over the fact ever since yesterday that Tuck and Essie were sleeping together, and she wasn’t quite sure how to compartmentalize that. She was even less sure how she felt about it. It wasn’t her business, though, was it?